How can we practice and share Krishna consciousness when the political leadership is uncooperative or even opposed?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so the question is how do we as devotees continue on our devotional service and expand it when the political environment is often indifferent or even hostile and what can we do about this there are two levels to it Prabhupada first of all said that he wanted to create a society of brahminical people brahminical people means those who are primarily in the mode of goodness and they are serious spiritualists who want to focus on the absolute truth and the kind of serious practice we have four regular principles sixteen round sadhana all this is towards creating a brahminical culture now along with that Prabhupada also wanted devotees to have devotional culture to spread further and affect, shape the rest of the society also sometimes some devotees say that democracy is, Prabhupada would say democracy is demon crazy that democracy is not a very good form of government but if you look at Prabhupada’s statements Prabhupada’s statements are not necessarily that way negative about democracy in the Vedic culture there was monarchy monarchy was not necessarily the same as what people today fear autocracy or dictatorship monarchy was there was a virtuous and trained king who would rule the world and that king would take care of spiritual culture but in today’s society that’s not the case Sushila Prabhupada had two ideas means if you look at Prabhupada’s statements he had two modes he said that if devotees spread devotional service vigorously share Krishna consciousness vigorously then they can themselves become influential socially and then if through that influence widespread social influence one can bring about even administrative changes or the other way Prabhupada said is we can directly influence the Kshatriyas that means those political leaders who are having some sattva guna some mode of goodness some spiritual inclination if devotees can meet with them and influence them that can also have a tremendous influence in society if we look at the history of the world religions we see that Buddhism did not get much followers till Ashoka adopted it and once Ashoka adopted it then he used the whole state infrastructure to spread it far and wide even his own sons and daughters they became missionaries and they went around spreading Buddhism similarly Christianity was a persecuted religion till almost the 4th century the Roman Empire was persecuting Christianity and then finally in the 4th century they said the pagan Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire the Roman Emperor accepted embraced Christianity as the official religion so how did this happen? because if we look at both times the if you look at the Roman history basically the Roman civilization became extremely morally degraded and even for a material administration of society some level of morality is required if people are completely immoral even material order cannot be maintained not to speak of any spiritual order so when the Roman Empire saw in the 3rd or 4th century how can I practically maintain order in this society in this empire he saw that it is the Christians who were relatively moral and regulated people and he felt that if the other citizens became like this then they would also become some level of God fearing disposition and then they will also be able to easier to administer them and that’s how it was accepted it was accepted so the point is as devotees if we we are morally principled and we live lives which are centered on principles that intelligent people will appreciate not necessarily devotees other devotees but even materially principled people they appreciate the lives of devotees that will itself have a influence that will change in the long run and of course there are some devotees with influence who have charisma who have contacts they can try to influence leaders also Prabhupada influenced George Harrison and through him the Hare Krishna mantra spread far and wide in one sense Prabhupada through George Harrison fulfilled Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s prophecy of in every town and village the holy name will be chanted because his records were chanted in every town and village of course the fulfillment of the prophecy is also an ongoing progress ongoing process so as devotees now first and foremost is that we should never lose hope or become disheartened thinking that our influence is so small and ultimately this is Kaliyuga only everything is going to get degraded we shouldn’t become discouraged thinking like this yes everything in Kaliyuga is going to get degraded but that doesn’t mean that we have to become degraded or we have to see others we have to be passively witnessing others getting degraded because Krishna has given a process of countering Krishna has come as a Yuga avatar Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he has given the Harinam for countering that and in one sense it is like Kaliyuga is like a rainy season so when the rainy season is there rains are going to come but that doesn’t mean everybody has to become drenched we can have umbrellas and we can give umbrellas to others so the more we people see that ok these umbrellas are benefiting us a person who doesn’t understand how one is getting drenched by the rain may think of umbrella as a burden but a person who understands how the rain is actually drenching me the rain will make me sick then one sees that umbrella is not a burden it is actually a shelter it is protecting me so when people are infatuated with materialistic things the onslaught of the rains of immorality they make people think we want this more and more but as this becomes worse as immorality becomes more and more rampant then even material order cannot be maintained and then what happens people start realizing that the scriptural morality that is being talked about that is not a restriction that is a protection it is not a burden it is a shelter just as umbrella when there are rains is not a shelter so when people see that devotees are actually being sheltered devotees are living better lives devotees are happier then that will have an influence on others and it is the lord’s program so the kaliva is there but the lord’s program is there to rescue those souls who want to be rescued and our focus should be that we ensure that we are rescued and we try to share these umbrellas the umbrella like shelter of Krishna consciousness to as many people as possible and there are devotees who are trying to work on spreading Vedic culture further through some models of an ashram and that is also of course a huge project but the essence of that project will be that at a mass level we try to spread Krishna consciousness to more and more people so that through even democratic process we can influence from the bottom up that was still Prabhupada’s primary approach in the bottom up he went to the hippies and all over the world his disciples went for book distribution they did harinam sankirtan and they tried to influence people in that way and that’s how his temples are also influencing but along with that Prabhupada also tried to wherever he went he tried to meet influential leaders and he tried to share Krishna consciousness with them also that is a top down approach so through both these approaches we can share Krishna consciousness and in one sense if we look at the history especially in terms of last 40-50 years, 50 years ago nobody would have thought that there would be devotees all over the world so it has actually happened by Prabhupada’s mercy so in one sense if we look back to what it was 50 years ago and what it is we will see that something miraculous is happening in fact some devotees have done some sociological research and they have seen that the way Krishna consciousness movement has spread in the last 50 years, 40 years now say 47 years if it continues to spread like this then in less than 500 years Krishna consciousness will become the world’s prominent religion we have other religions which have been around for 2000 years 1500 years they did not spread overnight so as compared to other spiritual paths or other religions or other spiritual institutes spread of the Krishna consciousness movement has been very rapid and secondly many charismatic many movements founded by charismatic leaders they often collapse after the charismatic leader departs so ISKCON also had its troubles after Prabhupada departed but it has despite those troubles not only survived but it has also flourished and that indicates the vibrancy of the movement that is one demonstration that the potency of the lord is there in this movement and if we just play our part to the best of our capacity Krishna will take care of the rest so that’s how we can wholeheartedly keep practicing and sharing Krishna consciousness from the bottom up as much as possible and if you have the contacts from the top down also thank you